


To Get Him Back

by QuickSilverFox3



Series: Mag7 Summer Swagbag Challenge [9]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, BAMF Emma Cullen, Background Relationships, Body Modification, F/M, Gen, Whole Planet is a City, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24998875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickSilverFox3/pseuds/QuickSilverFox3
Summary: Emma Cullen knows what she needs to do, and she'll do whatever it takes to succeed.
Relationships: Emma Cullen/Matthew Cullen
Series: Mag7 Summer Swagbag Challenge [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789006
Kudos: 3
Collections: Mag7 Summer Swagbag Challenge





	To Get Him Back

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mag7 Summer Swagbag June AU prompt: Steampunk AU

The city groaned as it settled, air rattling through its many passages and corridors bringing with it the cloying scent of iron and brackish water. Emma pressed her face into the cold metal, feeling her skirt shift and wrap around her legs like a living thing — she’d been to the ocean only once and yet the sensation of seaweed wrapping around her, threatening her to keep her beneath the choppy waves forever still haunted her.

Her grip on the creaking metal rungs tightened impossibly, until the harsh edges threatened to cut into the exposed skin where her gloves didn’t cover. Emma had seen people suffering from lockjaw before — rigid and trembling from the strain of it, eyes darting and pleading with whoever walked past until it finally ended — but the drop beneath her yawned, wind tugging at her. 

And then it was over. With one final groan, the ventilation flaps fluttered closed — some groaning in protest, as they had done for as long as Emma could remember and would likely to continue to do so for the rest of her life. Emma took a moment to compose herself, her own breath damp against her skin, and continued her climb. 

Rung by rung, muscles burning as she pulled herself up, her count resonating in her head like a heartbeat. Teddy had said there was a hatch on this side of the wall — small and almost rusted shut, but just wide enough for Emma to slip through — that would open up into one of the other sectors without having to pass through one of Bogue’s check points. Check points that were closed to her ever since Matthew— No.

Emma pulled her thoughts away from that dark pit that threatened to keep her trapped in anger and worry, turning her blood to ice and her knees to water. He’d only meant to help people — the thought that his machine could be taken away and used to harm the very people he was trying to help never entered his mind. And Emma loved him for that. She loved the callouses on his hands, the powder burns on his forearms, the scent of smoke that clung to his skin; and she loved the light that flickered in his eyes when he spoke about their future together. 

She almost missed the hatch, mired in her own thoughts, eyes passing over it before she realised what she was staring at. Emma snapped her carabiner onto the rung, fingers slipping on the lock as she realised her chest was burning from lack of air. It was real. She had a chance. She tugged on the hatch, hearing metal screech in protest — ignoring the building groan from the ladder — and set to work, scratching through years of rust with her multi-tool, tongue clamped between her teeth and sweat stinging her eyes. 

This plan could work. This plan had to work.

⁂

Emma groaned, face turned towards the faint hint of light in front of her, boots scrabbling against the unyielding metal as she pushed herself forward another painstaking inch. One arm was constricted against her chest — bags resting in the crook of her arm, fingers locked around her locket and feeling the ticking thump against her palm like a heartbeat. 

“Little bit further,” Emma whispered to herself, her tongue feeling too big for her mouth, voice rasping in the still air. She continued her slow progress — fighting down the rising tide of panic at the metal roof brushing against the top of her head, the weight of the city pressing down on her — and finally, her fingertips brushed against the edge of the hatch.

Emma had visited this section of the city years ago, and in the time since it had charged ahead while Rose Creek remained stagnant and waiting. Bodies pressed against her — the air hot and stagnant except when the machines roared like a dying beast — elbows knocking against her ribs, the ground beneath her feet ringing with the relentless whurr of machines. She saw a gap in the sea of bodies — a living shifting sea that threatened to keep her in its crush forever — and threw herself forward, metal ringing beneath her weight, air escaping her in a gasp.

“Didn’t mention this, did you Teddy?” Emma grumbled, immediately regretting her words when she recalled her last moments with Teddy — his face sheet white, the bones of his skull glowing through his skin as he swallowed another mouthful of machine waste to give her an excuse to be out of sight. He could be dead, and she would have no idea — another piece of her peaceful life chewed up in the cogs of endless progress. Emma raised the ticking pendant to her lips, and scanned the twisted buildings around her for some sense of direction. 

Sunlight was weak this far into the heart of the city, reflected through huge mirrors over vast expanses of churning machinery in the depths of the city too far down for anyone to survive naturally. But it made the buildings shine, paint plastered in trailing patterns over every available surface, gleaming like jewels. Emma tipped her head back, eyes searching the patterns over and over again— There.

⁂

“Mr Chisolm?” 

Seven pairs of eyes turned towards her, pining her to the wall like silver pins hammered through butterfly wings. Emma pushed it down, focusing on the burning ember of anger in his chest, setting her jaw and moving forward, her step ringing on the metal like a gong.

“Is one of you gentlemen Mr Chisolm?” she asked again, gaze passing over each man in turn.

Her gaze first travelled to the large man tucked in the back corner. He wasn’t overtly tall, but there was a sense of power about him, arms pitted and burned with burns, covered in a criss-cross of scars that tugged at Emma’s memory but it fell away from her as she sought to grasp it. 

Next to him was a young man, midway through painting his face, fingers covered with the luminous paste. He stared back at her, eyes dark and liquid, and grinned slowly revealing pointed teeth. She stared back, jaw set and eyes narrowed; then he relaxed, and the moment was over. 

Sitting silhouetted in the room’s only window, a man shuffled cards, mechanical fingers a blur over the thin sheets of metal. His hair caught the dim light, twisting ordinary brown into liquid gold. Two heavy guns rested on his hips, bone gleaming white at their handles.

Next to him, a shadow moved revealing a man marked with the bleached patches of some who travelled above the city, beneath the watchful eye of the sun burning too bright and too hot. He tugged his hood back over his head after peering at Emma, a slow languid grin spilling across his face. The jewellery hooked around his fingers was too large, slipping as he moved, gently knocking together. 

The next pair of men were standing close together, a joint unit. As Emma’s gaze passed over them, the shorter man — dark and gold in equal measures — tilted his head up to whisper into his taller companion’s ear. He looked at Emma, and she realised with dawning horror that his eyes were mechanical — bronze implants shifting in increments to mimic sight. The dark-haired man returned to staring flatly at Emma, a brace of knives at his hip, shielding his companion with his own body.

“That would be me, ma’am.”

Emma’s gaze snapped to the final man in the room, calm and composed, black and beautiful. 

This man would be her salvation or her damnation.

“Mr Chisolm, my name is Emma Cullen. Bartholomew Bogue has kidnapped my husband, and I need your help to get him back.”

**Author's Note:**

> [ My Tumblr!](https://inkformyblood.tumblr.com) Requests are always welcome!  
> 


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